bag
Pluralbags
Pluralbags
- 1
- 2A container, usually with one or more handles, in which you carry personal items or things needed for travel, such as a handbag, backpack, briefcase, or suitcase.
She slung her bag over her shoulder and ran for the train.
Check any bags larger than the airline's carry-on limit before you board.
UsageCommon phrases: pack a bag for a trip, check a bag at the airport, a carry-on bag.
- 3To gain possession of something, or to claim something before anyone else can.
She bagged the corner office the day it opened up.
Arrive early to bag a parking spot near the entrance.
UsageCommon with seats and places: bag a seat, bag a parking spot, bag the last one.
Similargrab, claim, secure, snag, nab
Note
The score-keeping idea of the hunter's verb, carried over to seats, prizes and first claims. News writing uses it for elections, as when opposition groups 'bagged almost 300 of the 500 seats.' Everyday speech uses it for grabbing something before anyone else can, such as a parking spot or the corner office.
Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 2 facts
- The sense of securing something for oneself developed from sporting usage associated with capture. gutenberg.org
- A news report used the quoted wording about opposition groups winning almost 300 of 500 seats. straitstimes.com
- 4
- 5A small envelope or packet containing drugs, especially narcotics.
Detectives recovered a bag of heroin taped inside the wheel well.
When the police searched him, they found twenty small bags of heroin taped inside his sneaker.
UsageUse a bag of followed by the drug's name: a bag of heroin.
Similarpacket
Note
Street slang for drugs measured out for sale, one small envelope at a time. It is countable, so the bags can be counted, as in twenty small bags, and the drug is named with of, as in a bag of heroin. It grows out of the ordinary container meaning: the packet is simply a very small bag.
Less common meanings
- 6A puffy or sagging fold of skin under the eye, often caused by tiredness, aging, or fluid retention.
He dabbed concealer onto the bag under each eye before the photo shoot.
A week of night shifts left her with deep bags under her eyes.
UsageSet phrase: have bags under your eyes.
Note
In Ken Ilgunas's Walden on Wheels (2013), the narrator sees in the rearview mirror a pale face with 'a purple bag under each eye.' The word is chiefly plural, as in bags under her eyes; the singular appears when each eye is counted on its own. Such bags are read as a sign of tiredness, lack of sleep or aging.
- 7To succeed in catching or killing something, especially when hunting or fishing.
The hunters bagged three deer on the opening day of the season.
She hopes to bag a wild turkey this fall.
Similarcatch, kill, shoot, land, net
Note
Underneath it is the idea of adding something to one's score, and the hunted animal is counted into the day's bag. The same score-keeping notion runs through the verb's senses of claiming, stealing and arresting. In Sikhim and Bhutan (1909), John Claude White wishes he 'had had the luck to bag' a fine specimen.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- John Claude White wrote Sikhim and Bhutan. en.wikisource.org
- Sikhim and Bhutan was first published in 1909. en.wikisource.org
- White wishes he had had the luck to bag an animal he describes as a fine specimen; the quoted wording is exact. en.wikisource.org
- 8One's preference, interest, or typical taste.
Abstract art has never been her bag, but she went to the opening anyway.
Cooking competitions are exactly his bag. He never misses an episode.
UsageMostly with a possessive and a negative: not my bag, like not my cup of tea.
Similarpreference, taste, liking, thing, penchant
Note
Newton Thornburg's Cutter and Bone (1976) stretches it to a whole way of being: his bag was silence. In ordinary colloquial use it names a preference or typical taste, and it often appears with not or never, as in not my bag. Close equivalents are thing and cup of tea.
- 9
- 10In baseball, first, second, or third base, or the cushion that marks it.
The Cubs loaded the bags with nobody out in the ninth inning.
The shortstop tagged him before he could dive back to the bag.
Similarbase
Note
Baseball names the station after the object that marks it. Strictly, the bag is the canvas- or rubber-covered cushion itself, but players use the word for the place a runner must reach: a runner heads back to the bag or takes a lead off it. The same habit counts hits by bases reached, so a double is a two-bagger. Home plate is never a bag; the word covers only first, second and third.
Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 4 facts
- Bag denotes both the physical base marker and the station it marks. en.wiktionary.org
- The rules permit canvas or rubber-covered bags. mktg.mlbstatic.com
- A double is also called a two-bagger. en.wikipedia.org
- The physical bags mark first, second and third, but the expression 'off the bag' can also apply to home plate, as Little League's umpiring instructions explicitly show. littleleague.org
- 11The quantity of game taken in a hunt or a fishing trip.
The party's bag for the weekend totaled six pheasants and a hare.
Strict limits keep each angler's daily bag small.
UsageNames a total, so it often comes with numbers: a bag of six pheasants, a daily bag.
Note
The noun counterpart of the hunter's verb: what you bag in a day is your bag. It counts the game a hunter or angler takes on one outing, as in a bag of six pheasants and a hare. A party's bag can be totaled for a single day or for a whole weekend.
- 12To arrest someone; to take a suspect into custody.
Detectives bagged the suspect outside his apartment at dawn.
The new task force aims to bag the ringleader by summer.
UsageOften passive in casual talk: get bagged by the police.
Similarnick
Oppositerelease
Note
JS x Jtrapz use it that way in 'Straight On Smoke' (2021), and nick is a close synonym. It turns the hunting image of catching quarry on people, so it suits stories and casual talk rather than official statements.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- The arrest sense is connected with the sporting image of capturing quarry. horntip.com
- 13To steal something.
Pickpockets bagged three wallets at the festival before anyone noticed.
He got caught trying to bag a pair of sneakers from the stockroom.
Similarsteal, pinch, swipe, nick, lift
Note
Slang for taking what is not yours, from the same score-keeping family as the hunter's verb. It can sound playful as easily as criminal: C. S. Lewis gives it to the children talking in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950).
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- The stealing sense belongs to the same semantic family as the sporting verb. horntip.com
- C. S. Lewis uses “bagged” meaning stolen in the children's dialogue; Peter speaks the words to Susan. fadedpage.com
- The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was first published in 1950. libguides.twu.ca
- 14A vulgar word for the scrotum.
The foul tip caught the catcher square in the bag, and he went down.
He swore the cheap bike seat had flattened his bag by mile ten.
Similarnutsack
- 15To hang loosely, sag, or bulge out like a bag, or to make something do so.
The tent walls bagged limply once the wind died.
Worn-out leggings bag around the ankles by the end of the day.
UsageMostly of clothes, with at for the place: trousers bag at the knees.
Note
The -ing form can name the fault itself. In Andrea Levy's Small Island (2004), the narrator shrugs off 'a little bagging on the waist' in an ill-fitting uniform.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Andrea Levy wrote Small Island. en.wikipedia.org
- Small Island was first published in 2004. andrealevy.co.uk
- The narrator Gilbert uses the exact phrase 'a little bagging on the waist' while dismissing his uniform's poor fit. alleynesacademy.co.uk
- 16To forget about something, ignore it, or get rid of it entirely.
Just bag the apology tour and move on.
We bagged the morning meeting and dealt with the outage instead.
UsageBrisk, often a command with that: bag that, bag the meeting.
Similarditch, skip, drop, scrap, abandon
Note
It drops a plan, a task or a line of thought rather than a physical object. Glyn Maxwell's Time's Fool (2000), a tale in verse, shows its brisk tone when Nelson brushes a scene aside with it at midnight. Other speakers bag a workout or a point they had meant to take up.
- 17A human female breast.
UsageCrude; avoid it in polite conversation or formal writing.
Note
The image comes from the bodily "sac" meaning: a soft pouch holding fluid. It is normally used in the plural and is slang for a woman's breasts rather than a neutral word. Compounds such as milkbag and funbag build on the same picture of a soft, filled pouch.
- 18Money; used chiefly in certain fixed phrases, such as 'secure the bag.'
After the championship, every free agent in the league is focused on securing the bag.
Forget fame; she's in it for the bag.
UsageLives in set phrases: get the bag, secure the bag, chase the bag.
- 19A sac in an animal's body that contains fluid or some other substance.
The honeybee carries nectar back to the hive in a bag inside its abdomen.
When a honeybee stings, its venom bag tears loose and stays in the skin with the stinger.
Note
The general anatomical sense, used for venom sacs and their like: the bag of poison in the mouth of some serpents. Two narrower uses hang from it, a dairy cow's udder and a woman's breast. Each takes the idea of a fluid-holding sac and fixes it on one organ.
Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 3 facts
- The anatomical sense covers fluid-containing sacs, including snakes' venom sacs. en.wiktionary.org
- A narrower anatomical sense denotes a dairy cow's udder. en.wiktionary.org
- Another narrower anatomical sense denotes a woman's breast. en.wiktionary.org
- 20An udder, especially the large, hanging udder of a dairy cow.
The vet examined the heifer's bag for early signs of mastitis.
A good dairy cow's bag fills evenly in the hours before milking.
Similarudder
- 21To ventilate a patient manually by squeezing a bag valve mask resuscitator.
The nurse bagged the newborn until it started breathing on its own.
EMTs bag patients during transport when no ventilator is available.
Similarventilate
Note
Clinical shorthand. To bag a patient is to squeeze breaths into them by hand through a bag valve mask, the BVM, often when no ventilator is at hand. It is easy to confuse with fitting a urine bag, but the context of airway or specimen tells them apart.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- A bag valve mask, abbreviated BVM, provides manual ventilation by squeezing a bag. childrens.health.qld.gov.au
- Manual bag ventilation is used when mechanical ventilation is unavailable. en.wikipedia.org
- 22A breathalyzer: the device police use to measure alcohol on a driver's breath.
She blew into the bag and registered just under the limit.
He'd only had two beers, but his hands still shook when the officer told him to blow in the bag.
UsageUsually used with the, as in blow into the bag.
Similarbreathalyzer
Note
The name is a holdover from early breathalyzers, which had a plastic bag over the end to take in a set amount of breath. The device changed, but the word stayed.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- The name derives from the plastic bag used to collect a fixed quantity of breath in earlier breathalyzers. en.wiktionary.org
- Breath-testing equipment changed while 'the bag' remained a name for a breathalyzer. en.wiktionary.org
- 23A derogatory word for a woman regarded as ugly.
Trolls in the comments called the actress a bag just because she was photographed without makeup.
He muttered that the woman at the counter was an old bag, and his friend told him to knock it off.
UsageMost often old bag. An insult with no neutral use, so avoid it.
Note
An insult rather than a description, and one aimed only at women: it ranks with hag and dog, and like them it has no neutral use.
- 24The quantity a bag contains, or its contents counted as one amount, for example of food that is bought or eaten.
The recipe calls for half a bag of frozen peas.
Our family goes through three bags of apples a week.
UsageUsed with of: a bag of chips, half a bag of peas.
- 25To find fault with someone or something using sarcastic remarks.
Critics were quick to bag the new film, calling it a two-hour advertisement.
Her mates bagged her new ute for weeks, but she still reckons it was a good buy.
UsageNot everyone knows it, so criticize is safer with outsiders; fans bag a team, mates bag your haircut.
Similarslam, knock, rubbish, mock, pan
Oppositepraise
- 26To furnish or load something with a bag.
a bee bagged with his honeyed venom
1690, [John] Dryden, Don Sebastian - 27To fit a patient with a bag for collecting urine.
- 28A 94-pound quantity that serves as a standard unit for measuring cement.
- 29A collection of objects in which order does not matter but, unlike in a set, elements may be repeated.
- 30A small pouch fastened at the nape of a man's neck to gather the rear hair of a wig, or a wig worn with such a pouch.
He had on a suit of Manchester velvet, Lined with white satten, a Bag, lace Ruffles, and a very handsome sword which the King had given to him.
1774, Frances Burney, Journals & Letters - 31Of a ship or boat, to drop away from its correct course.
- 32Another gay man, used by gay men to refer to one of their own.
- 33One thousand pounds sterling.
- 34To win a woman over and go off with her for romance or sex.
- 35To conceive a child.
- 36To be helpless with laughter.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
Middle English bagge comes from baggi, an Old Norse word for "bag, pack, satchel, bundle," which is also the source of Old French bague ("bundle, package, sack"). The Norse word is related to Old Norse bǫggr, meaning "harm, shame" or "load, burden," and its deeper origin is uncertain.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 5 facts
- Middle English bagge derives from Old Norse baggi. en.wiktionary.org
- Old Norse baggi meant bag, pack, satchel, or bundle. en.wiktionary.org
- Old French bague, meaning bundle, package, or sack, also derives from Old Norse baggi. en.wiktionary.org
- Baggi is related to Old Norse bǫggr, meaning harm, shame, load, or burden. en.wiktionary.org
- The word's deeper origin is uncertain. en.wiktionary.org